I just realized that I had the following recently published at http://www.koach.org/koc_5769_nisan_culture.htm of the Koach E-Zine:
My three favorite songs from The Doobie Brothers are "Listen to the Music," "Black Water," and "Jesus Is Just Alright"—not for their lyrical content though. "Listen to the Music" is a simple message, "Black Water" has a lot of grammatical errors (like "I ain't got no worries/I ain't in no hurry"), and I don't strongly agree with the theological undertones of "Jesus Is Just Alright." But I love classic rock, and The Doobie Brothers always put on great concerts.
When I was in middle school and just getting into classic rock, pop, and other music genres, I loved the tunes of "Jesus Is Just Alright," ELP's "I Believe in Father Christmas," and Elton John's "Step Into Christmas." The music didn't pull me away from Judaism and I'm sure that 70s-rock fans who proudly observe Christmas get kicks hearing Christian songs by their favorite artists. These songs are a win-win situation: good music for everyone and great lyrics for those with Christian pride. However, these Christian songs from secular-rock musicians made me wonder why there were so few Jewish songs from secular-rock musicians.
The question of why there were so few Jewish songs from secular-rock musicians made me really wonder: why were there so few secular rock-musicians—or, for that matter, professional performers of secular music—who are outwardly Jewish? We live in a free country where Christians can sing songs with Christian overtones. So, why would Billy Joel, a self-proclaimed "Jewish boy from Long Island", sing of Christmas in "She's Right On Time" or "Christmas in Fallujah"? Why has Neil Diamond—having sung "Kol Nidrei" in The Jazz Singer and "Havah Nagilah" in Keeping Up With the Steins—despite his proud Jewish heritage, released two Christmas albums? Why would Randy Newman—who speaks passionately of anti-Semitism he's faced and the uniqueness of his being a Jew—even write "Christmas In Capetown," or declare in his autobiographical "Dixie Flyer," "Christ, [we] wanted to be gentiles too/Who wouldn't out there? Wouldn't you?" Are so few musicians outwardly Jewish because it's more comfortable to be a gentile?
It's never been challenging to be Christian in the United States, but the ethnocentrism that comes so automatically to people—the assumption that everyone around us would, or should, have our own cultural values—has made Judaism, and other minority religions, hard to practice in a country where most citizens attend a Christian church. In the music industry, Christian music has always been possible to promote, but many Jews in the industry have found themselves in the position of a late 70s Bob Dylan—flirting with Christianity—or the position of Steely Dan's Walter Becker and Donald Fagen—severely hanging onto religious apathy, agnosticism or atheism and hardly recognizing their Jewish roots.
Today, Bob Dylan rarely sings definitely of Christianity. He's even been spotted in synagogue lately on High Holidays, so we know that "The Times They Are A-Changin'." In fact, when The Barenaked Ladies, They Might Be Giants, The LeeVees and other artists release the occasional Hanukah pop song, when singer-songwriter Peter Himmelman and, now, Leonard Cohen claim to observe Shabbat and when one of the biggest hip-hop acts in New York is Chassidic reggae star Matisyahu, it sounds like today's American Jews hardly live in the country where Randy Newman was born.
While I'm a full-time student in New York City, I'm also a part-time musician. It's been especially inspiring for me to be in touch with pianist/singer-songwriter Brian Gelfand and to play on a demo disc with bandleader and solo artist Avi Fox-Rosen, both of whom work professionally for Jewish communities in the tri-state area. In December, I was invited to the second installment of the Uptown Salon, hosted by singer-songwriters Andrés Wilson and Asia Mei, both of whom are also involved in the New York Jewish community. The Salon, a forum for presenting and discussing arts—poetry, visual arts, music, and more—has attracted the likes of other musicians involved in their Jewish communities, such as multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire C.J. Glass, pianist/singer-songwriter Scott Stein and others. Between musicians I've met at the Salon and knowing of so many other openly Jewish musicians—like Lara Torgovnik, Naomi Less, Michelle Citrin, and others—I'm excited to be part of a growing world of proud Jewish artists right in my very own town.
American Jews have come a long way just so they can be themselves. I find nothing ironic about making secular music and being Jewish, and the United States is becoming increasingly tolerant and welcoming of minorities. Being Jewish is just alright by me; just listen to the music.
Jonah Rank, recording his 3rd and 4th solo albums now, is a junior at the Joint Program of Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary and works as a Gabbai at JTS.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Saturday, August 30, 2008
The TRUE Truth About ABBA and JMJM
I want to clear up something very, very important.
Recently, I released a satirical song titled "Genetic Test" that was the hypothetical ABBA song that would have been included in Mamma Mia! and would have resolved the plot of the show by virtue of a genetic test discovering in fact who Sophie's father is. In promoting this song, I made the mistake of claiming that this song was rejected by ABBA from me in 1973 back when I was their primary songwriter. However, this is not true. In 1973, I was neither alive nor a primary songwriter for any Swedish pop groups. Furthermore, I fabricated a letter from the members of ABBA in which the band rejected "Genetic Test". This fabricated letter was also never written by ABBA; furthermore, it was never read by ABBA. Initially, these went by largely unnoticed; however, after my song appeared on YouTube in the form of a fan music video from a non-existent fan, backed by the story of a band named JMJM that, despite having real human beings performing on the recording of "Genetic Test", was a band solely assembled initially for the recording of "Genetic Test", these tidbits became noticed. Although I included mention of my later date of birth in many of my webpages (and, now, in the information on the song's YouTube video), the information, by being located in separate sites, might not have been obvious to new listeners.
Yet, as I mentioned, I have unfortunately gone about promoting this song improperly, and I will be changing the fashion in which I'll be advertising this song in the future. And despite the controversy that this song has caused, I do hope that this song will appear more appropriately, promoted in a different light, on an upcoming comedy album which I am in the midst of recording.
To all those aware of the TRUE story of my song "Genetic Test", I apologize for any confusion or hard feelings that my improper promotion of this song may have caused.
Recently, I released a satirical song titled "Genetic Test" that was the hypothetical ABBA song that would have been included in Mamma Mia! and would have resolved the plot of the show by virtue of a genetic test discovering in fact who Sophie's father is. In promoting this song, I made the mistake of claiming that this song was rejected by ABBA from me in 1973 back when I was their primary songwriter. However, this is not true. In 1973, I was neither alive nor a primary songwriter for any Swedish pop groups. Furthermore, I fabricated a letter from the members of ABBA in which the band rejected "Genetic Test". This fabricated letter was also never written by ABBA; furthermore, it was never read by ABBA. Initially, these went by largely unnoticed; however, after my song appeared on YouTube in the form of a fan music video from a non-existent fan, backed by the story of a band named JMJM that, despite having real human beings performing on the recording of "Genetic Test", was a band solely assembled initially for the recording of "Genetic Test", these tidbits became noticed. Although I included mention of my later date of birth in many of my webpages (and, now, in the information on the song's YouTube video), the information, by being located in separate sites, might not have been obvious to new listeners.
Yet, as I mentioned, I have unfortunately gone about promoting this song improperly, and I will be changing the fashion in which I'll be advertising this song in the future. And despite the controversy that this song has caused, I do hope that this song will appear more appropriately, promoted in a different light, on an upcoming comedy album which I am in the midst of recording.
To all those aware of the TRUE story of my song "Genetic Test", I apologize for any confusion or hard feelings that my improper promotion of this song may have caused.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
A Few Notes Regarding Mamma Mia! the film
NOTE (8/29/08): THE FOLLOWING IS NOT TRUE!
In yet a further attempt to deny my allegations that Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus have taken the credit for years of work I put into writing the songs for ABBA, it seems that the film of Mamma Mia! changed certain facts around to hide further that I gave them the perfect song for the musical.
First off, Bill Austin became Bill Andersson: as if nobody would catch the heavy hand of Benny Andersson in that move.
Secondly: the date of August 15th was conspiratorially moved to August 11th.
Actually, that was the most that they had changed; though I didn't notice the first time that I saw the show that in fact Donna had a last name, as carved into the guitar with the initials D.S....
Don't give into the lies. The truth is clearly out, no matter what Benny and Björn say.
In yet a further attempt to deny my allegations that Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus have taken the credit for years of work I put into writing the songs for ABBA, it seems that the film of Mamma Mia! changed certain facts around to hide further that I gave them the perfect song for the musical.
First off, Bill Austin became Bill Andersson: as if nobody would catch the heavy hand of Benny Andersson in that move.
Secondly: the date of August 15th was conspiratorially moved to August 11th.
Actually, that was the most that they had changed; though I didn't notice the first time that I saw the show that in fact Donna had a last name, as carved into the guitar with the initials D.S....
Don't give into the lies. The truth is clearly out, no matter what Benny and Björn say.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Untold stories: JMJM & ABBA
NOTE (8/29/08): THE FOLLOWING IS NOT TRUE!
As we are eleven days away from the very sobering release of the film version of Mamma Mia!, it is hard for me to restrain myself from revealing the truth and telling the little-known story behind why Mamma Mia! has such little plot.
It all started in early 1970, when Mike Klein and I had begun to write songs for our local friends Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus who were working on an album called Lycka, for which they wanted some original songs. At the time both Benny and Björn were going through a lull period of their songwriting careers, and they called upon Mike and me to write them a few songs that would fit their style. Mike and I each wrote a few songs and presented them to Benny and Björn, who fell in love with our songs. At the time it had not crossed either of our minds of that Mike and I should claim the copyrights to these songs, so we told Benny and Björn just to take these songs and consider them their own.
As neither Mike nor I were employed at the time, we just kept on writing more and more songs: all in a style that appealed to Benny and Björn specifically. As the songs piled up and we kept on giving them and their copyrights away to Benny and Björn, Mike and I had a realization: if we wanted to make it big in Sweden, we needed to be in a pop band with two female singers and two male singers whose first names’ first letters could form an acronym, and we needed more songs in English.
Acting upon our impulses, Mike and I hired Michal Mechlovitz and Jessie Winkler to sing our songs while Mike and I played guitar and piano respectively while singing very quietly in the background. In a burst of excitement, I knew I had to tell Benny and Björn the news of the potential success Mike and I were about to attain with Sweden’s biggest pop band with songs in English: JMJM! I wrote Benny and Björn a very lengthy and detailed letter explaining our theoretical formula for success. However, I did not hear back from either Benny or Björn for some time.
By the end of 1970, I knew that things would never be the same again between Benny and Björn, and Mike and me. I realized this one day when listening to a song of Benny and Björn’s on the radio, and I heard two female singers in the background. “Drat!” I thought. “They stole my idea of having two female singers in addition to two male singers!” However, I was contented that they had not stolen the ideas of having an acronym for a band name or having very many songs in English. Both of those were still trademarks of JMJM.
However, by 1973, I began to hear of Anni-Frid, Benny, Björn, and Agnetha being referred to as “ABBA”, and I noticed that more and more of the songs that they were singing were not only very familiar, but they also were in English. I knew that I should have stopped sending Benny and Björn the songs Mike and I were writing in English, but it was already too late. By September that year, Mike and I had already written and sent Benny and Björn every song that they were to record (and would claim to have written) over the next 34 years.
On the seventh day of October of 1973, I received a letter from Björn rejecting the final song I had sent him and Benny. This song was called “Genetic Test”, and it was the story of a young girl who wants her father to give her away at her wedding, but she needs a genetic test in order to find out who exactly her father is. (Although it is still unclear to me as to why this song was rejected, Björn’s letter regarding “The Missing Abba Song” has actually been reproduced in the last blog post on this website.)
Decades went by, ABBA nearly broke up, and neither Mike nor I had heard a word from Björn or Benny since the rejection letter from 1973. The first piece of news to come out that would interest me for a long time was the creation of Mamma Mia!, a musical with ABBA songs narrating a story about a young girl who, though she wants her father to give her away at her wedding, does not know who her father is. This query certainly could have been resolved with a genetic test, but as ABBA had rejected their one opportunity to include my song about a genetic test (namely, “Genetic Test”), there was no chance that the musical would have been able to resolve thusly the question of who the girl’s father was. For approximately a decade, I have remained silent and not offered my solution or the true story: that Mamma Mia! could have had a better resolution to the conflict in the story.
Yesterday, Michal, Jessie, Mike, and I reunited after a long hiatus of inactivity. The four of us recorded “Genetic Test” with newer technology than we did so many years ago (but we certainly gave it a bit of an older sound yesterday just for the fans!).
If you thought that there could have been so much more to the story of Mamma Mia!, then you are not alone. This international hit has been misunderstood and misrepresented throughout the world. However, the world need not wait any longer. The world can now appreciate JMJM’s gem: the missing ABBA song, “Genetic Test.”
As we are eleven days away from the very sobering release of the film version of Mamma Mia!, it is hard for me to restrain myself from revealing the truth and telling the little-known story behind why Mamma Mia! has such little plot.
It all started in early 1970, when Mike Klein and I had begun to write songs for our local friends Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus who were working on an album called Lycka, for which they wanted some original songs. At the time both Benny and Björn were going through a lull period of their songwriting careers, and they called upon Mike and me to write them a few songs that would fit their style. Mike and I each wrote a few songs and presented them to Benny and Björn, who fell in love with our songs. At the time it had not crossed either of our minds of that Mike and I should claim the copyrights to these songs, so we told Benny and Björn just to take these songs and consider them their own.
As neither Mike nor I were employed at the time, we just kept on writing more and more songs: all in a style that appealed to Benny and Björn specifically. As the songs piled up and we kept on giving them and their copyrights away to Benny and Björn, Mike and I had a realization: if we wanted to make it big in Sweden, we needed to be in a pop band with two female singers and two male singers whose first names’ first letters could form an acronym, and we needed more songs in English.
Acting upon our impulses, Mike and I hired Michal Mechlovitz and Jessie Winkler to sing our songs while Mike and I played guitar and piano respectively while singing very quietly in the background. In a burst of excitement, I knew I had to tell Benny and Björn the news of the potential success Mike and I were about to attain with Sweden’s biggest pop band with songs in English: JMJM! I wrote Benny and Björn a very lengthy and detailed letter explaining our theoretical formula for success. However, I did not hear back from either Benny or Björn for some time.
By the end of 1970, I knew that things would never be the same again between Benny and Björn, and Mike and me. I realized this one day when listening to a song of Benny and Björn’s on the radio, and I heard two female singers in the background. “Drat!” I thought. “They stole my idea of having two female singers in addition to two male singers!” However, I was contented that they had not stolen the ideas of having an acronym for a band name or having very many songs in English. Both of those were still trademarks of JMJM.
However, by 1973, I began to hear of Anni-Frid, Benny, Björn, and Agnetha being referred to as “ABBA”, and I noticed that more and more of the songs that they were singing were not only very familiar, but they also were in English. I knew that I should have stopped sending Benny and Björn the songs Mike and I were writing in English, but it was already too late. By September that year, Mike and I had already written and sent Benny and Björn every song that they were to record (and would claim to have written) over the next 34 years.
On the seventh day of October of 1973, I received a letter from Björn rejecting the final song I had sent him and Benny. This song was called “Genetic Test”, and it was the story of a young girl who wants her father to give her away at her wedding, but she needs a genetic test in order to find out who exactly her father is. (Although it is still unclear to me as to why this song was rejected, Björn’s letter regarding “The Missing Abba Song” has actually been reproduced in the last blog post on this website.)
Decades went by, ABBA nearly broke up, and neither Mike nor I had heard a word from Björn or Benny since the rejection letter from 1973. The first piece of news to come out that would interest me for a long time was the creation of Mamma Mia!, a musical with ABBA songs narrating a story about a young girl who, though she wants her father to give her away at her wedding, does not know who her father is. This query certainly could have been resolved with a genetic test, but as ABBA had rejected their one opportunity to include my song about a genetic test (namely, “Genetic Test”), there was no chance that the musical would have been able to resolve thusly the question of who the girl’s father was. For approximately a decade, I have remained silent and not offered my solution or the true story: that Mamma Mia! could have had a better resolution to the conflict in the story.
Yesterday, Michal, Jessie, Mike, and I reunited after a long hiatus of inactivity. The four of us recorded “Genetic Test” with newer technology than we did so many years ago (but we certainly gave it a bit of an older sound yesterday just for the fans!).
If you thought that there could have been so much more to the story of Mamma Mia!, then you are not alone. This international hit has been misunderstood and misrepresented throughout the world. However, the world need not wait any longer. The world can now appreciate JMJM’s gem: the missing ABBA song, “Genetic Test.”
Historical Proof of ABBA's Rejection of "Genetic Test"
NOTE (8/29/08): THE FOLLOWING IS NOT TRUE!
My dear fans and friends:
Below is the authentic handwritten letter (reproduced here in the exact font most similar to Björn's very own handwriting) written to me several years ago from when ABBA collectively rejected "Genetic Test" (after having accepted so many of the other songs I had written them)!
Please do realize that had the band accepted this one song, Mamma Mia! would have had so much of a better and more sensible plot!
7 October 1973
Dear Jonah,
Say you forgive my errors in English in this letter. Writing from one Swede to another, there really should be no reason that you and I speak of business in English rather than Swedish, but I also do not know why we bother singing in English to begin with. Anyway, no time for crying about the Anglo-Saxon hegemonic state of the music business. Let's get started with my letter to the rock and roll band—namely yours, JMJM*.
Thank you for the music—for giving it to me. Benny "and the Jets" Andersson (that's what we call Benny nowadays) and I really like the melody for this song: not too many notes and not too musical either. And like you did before for our other songs, you arranged the song's ending such that it fades out. (I know Benny "and the Jets" Andersson didn't mind it, but I am offended when you write us up-tempo songs in Major keys that end with cadences rather than fade-outs; I can't stop myself from crying out loud whenever we go into the studio and try to record that "Boomerang" song you wrote us as I am so uncomfortable with the ending.)
Unfortunately, there is something different or in a way unique about this song. It's nothing special; in fact, it's a bit of a bore. And the song is funny but has no sense within the lyrics—that is to say, the lyrics make no sense. I really tried to make it out. I wish I understood. But, perhaps this could be none other than the final song in an incoherent musical about a young girl who needs to find out who her father is exactly. But that would be silly, for anybody could be that guy! Neither Benny "and the Jets" Andersson nor I have any use for a song of this type. If all history goes well, there never should be a need for such a song.
But, don't go wasting your emotion. I am not mad at you at all. Neither you nor I'm too blame when all is said and done. This "Genetic Test" song is neither a product of your adept craftsmanship as a songwriter nor our sincerest plagiarism as performers. It's time to forget this song, and I forgive you immediately for the best. This song you have sent me shall be known throughout Sweden and the hegemonic Euro-American world of pop music as "The Missing ABBA Song" if ever asked about.
Hasta manana,
Björn Ulvaeus
On behalf of myself, Benny "Hans Christian" Andersson**, Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad
*Do send my best to Michal, Jessie, and Mike. I do also hope you change your names to form an acronym that will be found more euphonic and easier on the tongues and ears to the rest of the English-speaking world.
**Since beginning this letter, we have changed his nickname back to the old one.
My dear fans and friends:
Below is the authentic handwritten letter (reproduced here in the exact font most similar to Björn's very own handwriting) written to me several years ago from when ABBA collectively rejected "Genetic Test" (after having accepted so many of the other songs I had written them)!
Please do realize that had the band accepted this one song, Mamma Mia! would have had so much of a better and more sensible plot!
7 October 1973
Dear Jonah,
Say you forgive my errors in English in this letter. Writing from one Swede to another, there really should be no reason that you and I speak of business in English rather than Swedish, but I also do not know why we bother singing in English to begin with. Anyway, no time for crying about the Anglo-Saxon hegemonic state of the music business. Let's get started with my letter to the rock and roll band—namely yours, JMJM*.
Thank you for the music—for giving it to me. Benny "and the Jets" Andersson (that's what we call Benny nowadays) and I really like the melody for this song: not too many notes and not too musical either. And like you did before for our other songs, you arranged the song's ending such that it fades out. (I know Benny "and the Jets" Andersson didn't mind it, but I am offended when you write us up-tempo songs in Major keys that end with cadences rather than fade-outs; I can't stop myself from crying out loud whenever we go into the studio and try to record that "Boomerang" song you wrote us as I am so uncomfortable with the ending.)
Unfortunately, there is something different or in a way unique about this song. It's nothing special; in fact, it's a bit of a bore. And the song is funny but has no sense within the lyrics—that is to say, the lyrics make no sense. I really tried to make it out. I wish I understood. But, perhaps this could be none other than the final song in an incoherent musical about a young girl who needs to find out who her father is exactly. But that would be silly, for anybody could be that guy! Neither Benny "and the Jets" Andersson nor I have any use for a song of this type. If all history goes well, there never should be a need for such a song.
But, don't go wasting your emotion. I am not mad at you at all. Neither you nor I'm too blame when all is said and done. This "Genetic Test" song is neither a product of your adept craftsmanship as a songwriter nor our sincerest plagiarism as performers. It's time to forget this song, and I forgive you immediately for the best. This song you have sent me shall be known throughout Sweden and the hegemonic Euro-American world of pop music as "The Missing ABBA Song" if ever asked about.
Hasta manana,
Björn Ulvaeus
On behalf of myself, Benny "Hans Christian" Andersson**, Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad
*Do send my best to Michal, Jessie, and Mike. I do also hope you change your names to form an acronym that will be found more euphonic and easier on the tongues and ears to the rest of the English-speaking world.
**Since beginning this letter, we have changed his nickname back to the old one.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Contemporary Music in Contemporary Hebrew for Contemporary Jews published by Koach
I wrote the following article in August for the Tishrei 5768 edition of the Koach E-Zine. I have also published this article at my website, my WordPress, and my LiveJournal.
Contemporary Music in Contemporary Hebrew for Contemporary Jews
By Jonah Rank
One of my favorite parts of Talmud Torah, the lifelong commitment to Jewish study, is studying Jewish language. Today, Jewish language is more than the poetic language of rabbis; it is also the spoken language of the Jewish State. Today, it is just as important for us to be literate in the Hebrew we sing aloud or read in a siddur as it is to learn the Hebrew we’d speak in Israel.
Since 1948, many North American Jews have chosen to pronounce Hebrew the way Israelis pronounce Hebrew – no longer how 18th century Europeans would: many of us now say “Shabbat” (not “Shabbos”), “B’rit” (not “Bris”), “Etrog” (not “Esrog”), “Shavu`ot” (not “Sh’vuos”), and so on. Deciding to pronounce Hebrew as Israelis do also meant that we, like Israelis, now strived to understand the language of our ancestors.
Today, many of us now pronounce Hebrew more like Israelis than 18th Century German Jews, and many of us agree that we want to know what we sing about in shul – regardless of our level of understanding Hebrew. In spite of this changed frame of mind though, many of us still pray with tunes that, though we might not realize it, might no longer jive with a modern Jew’s attitude towards Hebrew prayer.
Many tunes we use for prayer today might make it hard for us to accent a word the way an Israeli would. For example, most tunes I know for “Lekhah Dodi” force me to sing “SHA-bat” (instead of “sha-BAT”, how Israelis pronounce “Shabbat”). These tunes were written for Jews who sang “Shabbos” (like “SHA-bos”) and emphasized that first syllable anyway, or these tunes were based on older tunes written for such Jews. In fact, this problem comes up with a good number of words in just about every other prayer – where we might sing “MIZ-mor” instead of “miz-MOR” or “le-HO-dot” instead of “le-ho-DOT” or all sorts of words that we unconsciously sing in an old-fashioned way.
Another pet peeve for the modern Jew: many of the tunes we use don’t reflect the prayers’ sentence structures. Take for example Psalm 29 (“Mizmor Ledavid: Havu Ladonay B’ney Elim…”). Nearly every tune I know for it has musical phrases that end in the middle of a sentence. In these tunes, the words “yecholel ayyalot”, for example, which are often connected to the next few words or marked with a comma, are sung as one would sing the end of a sentence. Though I always find the end of the musical phrase kind of catchy here, if the musical phrasing should match the phrasing of the actual words, then I have to admit that this music does not go with the flow of the language.
This past summer, in the midst of playing with my sound recording equipment (when I should have been doing work for summer classes), I decided that I would like to take up the prayer-language issues that I had only become aware of in the past few years.
In fact, I have begun composing new tunes: tunes where the words fit when pronounced in modern Israeli Hebrew; tunes where the musical and the grammatical phrasing match; and – most importantly – tunes that I hope the modern Jew would find catchy but not campy, didactic but not demeaning, and spirited, spiritual, and inspiring.
I have so far composed and written out sheet music for “Lekhah Dodi” and Psalm 29 (plus a few other prayer texts). My current plan is to finish setting all of Kabbalat Shabbat to new, modern tunes and, after recording them (to be released on CD by December 2008), to offer these modern tunes to all modern Jews interested, and to share the tunes with all of my own personal Tefillah communities.
Jonah is a sophomore at Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he studies music and Jewish music (respectively). Jonah's debut CD, Loud and Dumb, is available on iTunes. Jonah also prates at www.jonahrank.com almost daily.
Contemporary Music in Contemporary Hebrew for Contemporary Jews
By Jonah Rank
One of my favorite parts of Talmud Torah, the lifelong commitment to Jewish study, is studying Jewish language. Today, Jewish language is more than the poetic language of rabbis; it is also the spoken language of the Jewish State. Today, it is just as important for us to be literate in the Hebrew we sing aloud or read in a siddur as it is to learn the Hebrew we’d speak in Israel.
Since 1948, many North American Jews have chosen to pronounce Hebrew the way Israelis pronounce Hebrew – no longer how 18th century Europeans would: many of us now say “Shabbat” (not “Shabbos”), “B’rit” (not “Bris”), “Etrog” (not “Esrog”), “Shavu`ot” (not “Sh’vuos”), and so on. Deciding to pronounce Hebrew as Israelis do also meant that we, like Israelis, now strived to understand the language of our ancestors.
Today, many of us now pronounce Hebrew more like Israelis than 18th Century German Jews, and many of us agree that we want to know what we sing about in shul – regardless of our level of understanding Hebrew. In spite of this changed frame of mind though, many of us still pray with tunes that, though we might not realize it, might no longer jive with a modern Jew’s attitude towards Hebrew prayer.
Many tunes we use for prayer today might make it hard for us to accent a word the way an Israeli would. For example, most tunes I know for “Lekhah Dodi” force me to sing “SHA-bat” (instead of “sha-BAT”, how Israelis pronounce “Shabbat”). These tunes were written for Jews who sang “Shabbos” (like “SHA-bos”) and emphasized that first syllable anyway, or these tunes were based on older tunes written for such Jews. In fact, this problem comes up with a good number of words in just about every other prayer – where we might sing “MIZ-mor” instead of “miz-MOR” or “le-HO-dot” instead of “le-ho-DOT” or all sorts of words that we unconsciously sing in an old-fashioned way.
Another pet peeve for the modern Jew: many of the tunes we use don’t reflect the prayers’ sentence structures. Take for example Psalm 29 (“Mizmor Ledavid: Havu Ladonay B’ney Elim…”). Nearly every tune I know for it has musical phrases that end in the middle of a sentence. In these tunes, the words “yecholel ayyalot”, for example, which are often connected to the next few words or marked with a comma, are sung as one would sing the end of a sentence. Though I always find the end of the musical phrase kind of catchy here, if the musical phrasing should match the phrasing of the actual words, then I have to admit that this music does not go with the flow of the language.
This past summer, in the midst of playing with my sound recording equipment (when I should have been doing work for summer classes), I decided that I would like to take up the prayer-language issues that I had only become aware of in the past few years.
In fact, I have begun composing new tunes: tunes where the words fit when pronounced in modern Israeli Hebrew; tunes where the musical and the grammatical phrasing match; and – most importantly – tunes that I hope the modern Jew would find catchy but not campy, didactic but not demeaning, and spirited, spiritual, and inspiring.
I have so far composed and written out sheet music for “Lekhah Dodi” and Psalm 29 (plus a few other prayer texts). My current plan is to finish setting all of Kabbalat Shabbat to new, modern tunes and, after recording them (to be released on CD by December 2008), to offer these modern tunes to all modern Jews interested, and to share the tunes with all of my own personal Tefillah communities.
Jonah is a sophomore at Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he studies music and Jewish music (respectively). Jonah's debut CD, Loud and Dumb, is available on iTunes. Jonah also prates at www.jonahrank.com almost daily.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Excerpt From The Writings of Mr. Scott A. Shay Discussing Conservative Judaism
For a better visual presentation of this, please see http://www.jonahrank.com/article/368/excerpt-from-the-writings-of-mr-scott-a-shay-discussing-conservative-judaism
The following excerpt, from Chapter X of Getting Our Groove Back: How to Energize American Jewry by Mr. Scott A. Shay and published by Devora Publishing (December 1, 2006), has been reprinted with the permission of Mr. Shay and Devora
(Numbers in brackets refer to my footnotes ["fn"] at the bottom of the entry.)
The Causes for the Conservative Movement’s Decline
Conservative Jews feel that the Movement’s lack of effective leadership and institutional failings have caused the Movement’s decline. As Professor Susan Hodge writes, “It is a half joking, half bitter catchword among some of us that the Conservative Movement has contempt for Conservative Jews. The Movement also has self-perpetuating bureaucracies that are out of touch with us and don’t respect or even welcome us, the ordinary Jews living our lives.” Dr. Jacob Ukeles, a consultant to The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism[1], wrote after his involvement in a three-year effort to design a strategic plan to reorganize The United Synagogue’s twenty-two separate departments and fifteen regional offices that progress has been “glacially slow.” As of 2006, five years have passed since The United Synagogue[1] first identified the need for institutional reform, yet little has changed. The Conservative Movement bureaucracy makes the U.S. Department of Agriculture[2] appear positively dynamic. To put it bluntly, the leadership of Conservative Judaism is floundering in a bureaucratic quagmire.
The Conservative Movement’s recent failure to address the decline of Conservative Jewish education in a constructive way underscores the laity’s criticism of the Movement’s leadership. Because of a lack of vision and a spirit of frustration, some Conservative leaders have begun to gratuitously criticize the Movement’s flagship day schools, the Solomon Schechter[3] system. While correctly bemoaning the Conservative Movement’s failure to devote anywhere near adequate attention or resources to congregational schools, some have gone a step further by calling for an end to the “overemphasis on day schools.” Others have claimed it was a “massive failure to put the emphasis we do on day schools” and that “the damage done has been horrendous.” Rather than simultaneously accentuate the positive aspects of day schools and advocate additional focus on congregational schools, Conservative leaders are pitting one form of education against another needlessly. Tragically, this unnecessary fighting has contributed to the stagnation of Solomon Schechter Day School[3] enrollment and has led many of the Movement’s best and brightest leaders to focus solely on non-denominational community day schools. Moreover, none of this bickering has led the Conservative Movement to devote additional resources to Hebrew schools; rather, all recent additional resource allocations to Conservative Hebrew schools have come primarily from community organizations such as the UJA-Federation of New York[4] and groups of national unaffiliated philanthropists. The Reform Movement has contributed most of the new methods for teaching and organizing Hebrew schools. For many Conservative Jews, the fight over Jewish education is only the most recent example of the Movement’s lack of leadership.
There are also, to be fair, external reasons for the accelerating decline of the Conservative Movement. A fundamental reason for the Conservative Movement’s success from 1945 until the 1970s was that the Movement corresponded to American society’s general desire for “moderation” and “homogenization” and occurred at a time when Americans generally, and Jews specifically, moved to the suburbs. As Marshal Sklare argues, in his book Jews on the Suburban Frontier, the combination of these two phenomena created the perfect environment for Conservative Judaism to flourish. Sklare claims that the Conservative Movement was in a way tailor made for the “Lakeville” or suburban Jew. The 82% of Lakeville Jews who were born Orthodox but wished to flee Orthodoxy were looking for a synagogue environment that was comfortable and not so concerned with theology. These Jews were naturally drawn to Conservative synagogues, because they had a lot of Hebrew in the service, including all the traditional parts of the service (such as Musaf), and a Jewishly observant and devout rabbi. Conservatism’s primary virtue was that it did not fall under either “extreme” of Reform or Orthodox. In recent decades, however, American society has become more comfortable with diverse and more narrowly focused groups. Few people still feel the need to moderate their views to become more comfortable with diverse and more narrowly focused groups. Few people still feel the need to moderate their views to become part of a larger group, and emerging adults no longer need a “compromise synagogue” between their practices and the practices of their parents. Instead, young Conservative Jews today want a Judaism that focuses on their own spiritual needs. The result of this social shift has been the steady decline of Conservative Judaism over the past two decades.
Unfortunately, it seems as though the Conservative Movement leadership has deliberately ignored the societal changes around them. The Conservative Movement leadership can be compared to the character “Hem” in the widely read parable of “Who Moved My Cheese[5].” In this story two “little people,” Hem and Haw, discover that after many years of finding and enjoying cheese from one spot in a large maze, one day the cheese is suddenly no longer there. In fact, the cheese had been slowly diminishing over time; Hem and Haw had simply not noticed. But although Haw leaves his old spot – albeit with much tribulation and some self-doubt – and ultimately succeeds in finding a new spot with more cheese than ever, Hem refuses to leave. Instead, Hem nurtures his confusion and resentment about the possible reasons why there is no more cheese but takes no action. He just keeps blaming others for the movement of the cheese, and yet is still somehow comforted by being able to go to the same place where there used to be cheese even though it no longer offers any food. Although the parable holds out some hope, Hem presumably starves to death. Conservative Jews in the pews and working pulpit rabbis have been witnessing the slow decline in the Conservative Movement’s leadership for years and are understandably central organs. Others have just voted with their feet.
Additional Controversies that threaten the Conservative Movement
The Conservative Movement is currently grappling with two issues that threaten its ability to remain unified. These issues are the ban[6] on gays and lesbians entering rabbinical school and the coexistence of egalitarian and non-egalitarian congregations within the Conservative Movement.
Currently, the Conservative Movement is polarized between those who do and do not support the coexistence of egalitarian and non-egalitarian synagogues. In approximately 90% of North American Conservative synagogues, men and women participate equally in all aspects of prayers and Torah reading. These synagogues refer to themselves as egalitarian. In the other 10%, women’s participation is limited to some degree by traditional halachic constraints that relate to women leading services, being counted in the minyan and participating in the Torah service. Men and women sit together in all Conservative congregations. At the December 2005 biennial conference of the Conservative Movement, Rabbi Menachem Creditor[7] was both enthusiastically supported and bitterly resented for a speech that urged the Movement to expel non-egalitarian Conservative synagogues from the Movement. On the one hand, Creditor’s supporters feel that it is impossible to coexist with non-egalitarian synagogues as a matter of principle; on the other hand, Creditor’s critics, especially Canadian Conservative rabbis, who are the spiritual leaders of most of the non-egalitarian congregations, found it hard to comprehend that the Movement leaders were threatening their congregations with expulsion when they had been part of the Conservative Movement for decades and were practicing what was the normative Conservative Judaism of just a few decades ago. This particular rift not only involves a dividing line within American Conservative Jewry, but also highlights the split of American non-Orthodox Jewry from its international brethren on key issues. For example, Canadian Reform Jews have not recognized the American Reform position on patrilineal descent. Furthermore, Canadian Reform Jews have not been successful in getting the CCAR[8] to reexamine the issue. In the Conservative case, some American Conservatives are lobbying to expel the Canadians if they do not comply with the American view.
The second major issue threatening to split the Conservative Movement is the question of gay and lesbian rabbis. Although it seems clear that a decisive majority of both Conservative laity and rabbis endorse the acceptance of openly gay and lesbian individuals to Conservative rabbinical and cantorial schools as well as collegial assemblies, a change of policy in favor of gays and lesbians nonetheless faces very tough hurdles from a purely halachic perspective. And, while some Conservatives believe that halacha should simply be set aside on moral grounds, others who deeply believe in Conservative halacha contend that there are grounds for a revision of halacha known as a takana, and that this course of action must be pursued before any official pronouncement can be made. In the meantime, the current policy is that gays and lesbians are not admitted to Conservative rabbinical school[9]; however, if a Conservative rabbi post-ordination “comes out,” he/she may continue to be a member of the Rabbinical Assembly[10] and a practicing rabbi. Although the status quo has functioned in practice, the issue nevertheless threatens to split the current Conservative configuration, because advocates of both approaches to gay and lesbian clergy feel passionately that they will not be able to stay within the Movement if the decision goes against their view.
The narrowing of vision of the Conservative Movement has resulted in other departures from the Movement. Many of the offshoots of Conservatism were once some of the most exciting groups within the Movement. Groups such as the Union for Traditional Judaism[11], the Havurah[12] devotees, and the Reconstructionists are offshoots of Conservative Judaism, and new or revitalized synagogues are led by ordained Conservative rabbis who have either left the Movement of rounded new institutions pointedly unaffiliated with the Conservative Movement. Neither B’nai Jeshurun (“BJ[13]”) or Kehillat Hadar[14], both of New York, Shaar Hashamayim[15] of Montreal nor Ikar[16] of Los Angeles, could find a place within the Conservative Movement for their vibrant and rapidly growing congregations. These new offshoots are a boon to American Jewry, but a loss to Conservative Judaism.
Jewish Commitment among Conservative Jews
With all of the controversy and confusion about what it means to be a Conservative Jew, only half of Jews who call themselves Conservative actually belong to a Conservative Synagogue (or any synagogue for that matter). It is, however, critical to note that although the number of Conservative Jews who do affiliate with a synagogue[] continues to decline, their Jewish commitment is highly and arguably rising, if measured by their commitment to Jewish practices. The intermarriage rate among “synagogue” Conservative Jews was 17% from 1980 to 1990, and only 12% a decade later. This rate is far below the overall American Jewish average of 46% for 1991-2001. Thus, though the number of Conservative Jews is declining, their commitment to Judaism is increasing. The fundamental question for Conservative Jews should be: how can more Jews find Conservative Judaism meaningful? In my view, the Conservative Movement should review how the Reform and Orthodox Movements responded to existential challenges with radical solutions that enabled them to rebuild their bases.
Reform and Orthodox Responses to Existential Threats
Over the past century both Reform and Orthodox Jewry have responded to existential threats, resulting either from a decline in leadership or unresolved controversies, by allowing their constituents a margin of freedom. As a result, neither Orthodox nor Reform Jewry today is uniform; rather, both encompass a broad spectrum of practices within boundaries defined by the center. This response was revitalized both groups enormously.
Reform was able to avert demographic collapse by abandoning a fixed theology. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Reform Movement’s membership dwindled to fewer than 10% of American Jewry. (Reform’s crisis then was worse than today’s Conservative crisis.) In response to this drastic decline, the Reform Movement jettisoned its highly ideological and partisan Pittsburgh Platform of 1887 and replaced it with a framework for Reform Judaism instead of a fixed theology. This approach permitted Jews with very different theological stances to coexist within the Reform Movement and even the same synagogues. Moreover, during this period, Reform laity gathered the courage to completely change the way the Movement’s institutions were led. The laity called on leaders to honor different positions within Reform Judaism rather than making religious decisions binding on all Reform Jews. Thus, at the December 2005 Union of American Hebrew (Reform) Congregations[17] convention, the prayer services ranged from yoga-oriented silent prayer groups to a minyan that closely resembled a left-wing Conservative service. By abandoning a fixed theology, Reform has re-made itself into a vibrant, dynamic, and wide open movement that would be unrecognizable to a Reform Jew of the 1920s.
Orthodoxy’s incredible and unexpected revival in the past several decades has taken place for two principal reasons: first, its willingness to include more diversity under the umbrella of orthodoxy and second, a wider focus on day schools. Although some outside observers perceive Orthodox Jewry as monolithic, it is actually diverse and growing in its diversity. In addition to the four variations of the fervently Orthodox […], there are at least three other groups: Centrist Orthodox, Modern Orthodox and a nascent “Egalitarian-light” Orthodox. Each of these groups feels that their members are “commanded” by halacha and a passion for lifelong Jewish learning. At the same time, these groups also exhibit significant variations at the level of basic practice and regarding certain ideological foundations. For example, the Chasidic concept of “the Rebbe” differs greatly from the concept of “Rabbi” or “Rav” in other streams of Orthodoxy. A chasid is essentially born following a certain rebbe because a Chasidic devotee follows the rebbe of his clan. In all other streams, an adult individual presumes the right to select a rabbi whose approach to Judaism is consistent with his personal beliefs. These groups also vary considerably in the role of women within the synagogue service and within the community.
Orthodoxy today incorporates different roles for women. In all streams to the left of the Chareidim, women’s roles in formal prayer services and in learning have grown significantly. Women on the left wing of Orthodoxy have also been pushing for rabbis to revive formerly minority opinions that would enable Orthodox women to participate in the Torah service portion of prayers. Thirty years ago Orthodox women formed the first “women’s davening groups.” In these groups, women prayed separately from men and conducted the entire service, including the Torah portion, themselves. Some halachic adjustments were made to the standard service, but some Orthodox women felt spiritually invigorated by having “a service of their own.” Recently, a few left-wing Orthodox minyanim have adopted the hybrid regular service/women’s davening group for Shabbat morning first introduced by Congregation Yedidyah[18] of Jerusalem. In this service, men and women pray shacharit (the morning prayer) separated by a mechitsa and led by a male cantor. Men and women then go to separate rooms for the Torah service, both sexes come together again for mussaf. In the last few years, the search for halachic innovations to permit more women’s participation has lead to the Shira Chadasha[19]/Darchei Noam[20] style service wherein women actually lead prayers for some portion of the services (at the same time as men present on the other side of the mechitsa) such as Kabbalat Shabbat and Pesukei DeZimra. Women there also participate fully in the Torah service, with the men present on the other side of the mechitsa. Women’s learning has grown tremendously in all streams of Orthodoxy. In many streams, a year of post-high school Jewish learning for women has become as de rigueur as for men. Though a Chareidi man would find it anathema to pray at a Shira Chadasha[19] style minyan, and a woman used to Yedidyah[18] might be unwilling to attend a Chareidi service because she would find it unfulfilling, both of these Jews would consider themselves Orthodox and commanded by halacha. This lack of uniformity is played out in other areas, from dress to educational methods: there is no one Orthodox rabbinical organization that can claim to speak for all Orthodox rabbis. There are several meaningful Orthodox rabbinical associations, in contrast to the Conservative and Reform Movements, which each have only one.
This lack of uniformity has allowed the Orthodox to broadly delineate and differentiate what might at first glance seem like a small range of the Jewish denominational spectrum. All streams of Orthodoxy have embraced day schools […]. But more importantly, the intense drive for Jewishly educating children energized all parts of the movement. With this, Orthodoxy became by far the fastest growing movement in America over the last twenty years.
The Conservative Movement has the potential to undergo a similar radical transformation, if its members are willing to fundamentally reconceptualize their understanding of what it means to be a Conservative Jew and install an entirely new leadership. This transformation will make Conservatism the first post-denominational movement. While this may sound like a contradiction, upon closer examination it is not. Post-denominationalism is not the same as non-denominationalism. Non-denominational Jews are those who do not belong to any movement because they are simply less attached to Judaism. They may be Jews married to non-Jews, children of intermarried Jews or simply disaffected from Judaism. Most non-denominational Jews are on the exit lane from American Jewry. By contrast, post-denominational Jews may be highly interested in being Jewish but feel disaffected from the Movements as they are currently configured. Many of these Jews are lapsed Conservative Jews who have not found a new denominational home in which they are comfortable. Also, unlike non-denominational Jews, post-denominational Jews have core Jewish peoplehood values such as culture, an interest in Israel, a wish to perpetuate the Jewish people and a desire to educate their children Jewishly. At the same time, post-denominational Jews have a wide variety of narrow approaches to the religious part of being Jewish. The “Conservadox” have a somewhat expansive view of traditional halacha, but consider halacha binding. Other post-denominational Jews approach God through more purely spiritual practices. As important as Judaism is to them, these Jews do not view the strict observance of traditional halacha as a way to help them find meaning in their lives.
Reinventing Conservative Judaism
Because there is no way that the Conservative Movement can encompass the entire spectrum of post-denominational mini-Movements in a theologically consistent manner, it should stop trying to bind all of its members to one theology. Instead, it should create boundaries that leave room for a wide range of practices. Recent Conservative leadership feels encroached on by members on the left and the right only because it wants to resolve the differences between them by drawing a straight party line somewhere down the middle. The narrowness of the middle, however is only the result of the Conservative leadership’s own lack of imagination. As the case of vast variations within the Orthodox and Reform Movements demonstrates, the middle can also be wide. Consider the following analogy from the physical world. The length of any coastline such as the Costa del Sol, or the Cliffs of Cornwall, will vary considerably depending on how it is measured. If a surveyor measures the coastline by advancing 1000 yards per measurement, he would get a much different measurement than if he advanced up the coastline 10 yards at a time. In the latter case, more nooks and crannies would each become meaningful parts of the measurement, which would be substantially larger. The measure of the coastline would be larger still if the surveyor advanced one yard a time. For American Jews there are many meaningful crevices and nooks that are defined away by the leadership of the Conservative Movement when they try to measure their boundary as one straight line from top to bottom. Instead, the beauty of a theological landscape only becomes clear when each sub-peninsula (i.e. mini-Movement) on the coast displays its own texture and magnificence. When the Conservative Movement decides not to resolve major theological questions such as the gay/lesbian issue, the key women’s participation issues, the binding nature of halacha and Schechter Day School[3] versus Hebrew school controversy, the middle will become very large indeed.
In lieu of a uniform theology, the Conservative Movement must declare several boundary principles which are in the reach of practicing and non-practicing Conservative Jews as well as post-denominational Jews. I will propose a list of these principles, but such a list is obviously up to a new Conservative leadership to devise.
1. Observance of Shabbat, Jewish Holidays and kashrut in some form;
2. Weekly synagogue attendance;
3. Commitment to making Torah learning a life long endeavor;
4. Commitment to a serious Torah education for children, meaning day school or effective Hebrew school in conjunction with youth groups, camping and Israel programs;
5. Tzedakah, ethical behavior and social action;
6. Commitment to Israel;
7. Traditional determination of Jewish peoplehood (i.e., matrilineal descent or conversion).
This is not a large list and it is not particularly ideological. One can believe or not believe in halacha and embrace each principle; however, all new Conservative Jews should be able to recognize and appreciate the commonality of those who abide by these seven principles. Within the framework of these seven principles, there is a lot of room for variation. Some mini-Movements within the new Conservative umbrella will deem other additional principles to be binding. It may be that some Conservative Jews will not feel comfortable davening in another Conservative synagogue linked with a different mini-Movement; this should not be viewed as an obstacle, as it happens all the time among the Orthodox. Likewise, some Reform Jews don’t understand yoga minyanim while others do not like mostly Hebrew services. Perhaps different mini-Movements will want to establish their own rabbinical seminaries. That too is okay. The more seminaries there are, the more avenues to approaching Jewish learning there will be. Some mini-Movements will feel comfortable with openly gay and lesbian rabbis and some will not. Some on both sides can feel loyal to the common principles of the halacha. We can also hope the rancor over the binding nature of halacha, which is now largely theoretical, will quiet down as Conservative Jews press towards a common practice of the common denominators of Judaism.
The conservative Movement can flourish by creating a high-quality common infrastructure for a highly engaged community of Jews who have different beliefs yet also respect each other. The Conservative Movement must make its Hebrew schools engaging and effective […]. Conservative synagogues must also create a seamless integration of youth groups, summer camps and Israel programs for its youth. Everyone can agree on the imperative of these steps. The Law Committee of the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly[10], which presently issues opinions that are either ignored by the laity or which divide the Movement, should be abolished. In its place, a Fences Committee should be established to define the boundaries of the Conservative Movement. Each mini-Movement would establish its own Law or Practice Committee. These smaller Law Committees would be more responsive to their mini-Movements, which will hopefully lead their constituent members to actually take their rulings seriously.
The Conservative Movement should shift its focus away from theology toward creating comfortable places for Jews to express their Judaism. The overall Fences Committee should not be empowered to opine on the rightness or wrongness of the mini-Movement’s legal rulings; rather, it should only determine if a constituent mini-Movement has violated one of the fundamental principles or add a principle if there is a broad and deep consensus within the overall Movement to do so. Constituted as such, the new Conservative Movement will no longer have the urge to expel groups that do not express majority opinions, as long as they express authentically Jewish ideas and abide by the seven principles. By shifting away from ideology, theology and theoretical debate, Conservative Judaism will create comfortable places for Jews to express their Judaism. In short, all the streams of the new Conservatism can commonly support these comfortable places.
Some Conservative synagogues may offer multiple comfortable places which each have their own approach. A few avant-garde Conservative synagogues such as Ansche Chesed[21] of New York already offer several different minyanim on Shabbat morning and thus already function like a microcosm of what could be the new Conservatism. If different groups can and do happily coexist in the same physical space by focusing on being a community bound by practice as opposed to the purity of ideology, imagine how well they could live together within the same Movement. And, since the focus of the seven principles is to create a realistic common denominator, Conservative Jews who do not and would not want to keep all aspects of halacha can still find their place within the Movement. The goal of these principles is to eliminate the “contempt” that Jews in the pew currently feel from the elite intelligentsia of the Conservative Movement. A focus on practice would also end the present and embarrassingly ineffective push for “compliance,” and replace it with a push for cooperation, education and growth from wherever a Conservative Jew stands. Conservatism must change its attitude from shunning Jews to inviting them into the Movement.
In April 2006, the Conservative Movement took a step towards renewal by appointing a non-rabbinic chancellor to JTS who had no previous official tie to the Conservative Movement. Professor Arnold Eisen[22], previously of Stanford University[23], will assume his new post on July 1, 2007. This appointment carries much promise and some risk. Professor Eisen[22] is an outstanding scholar and passionate and engaging speaker who will bring a new spark to the Movement. However, since Professor Eisen’s appointment, the Law Committee is still moving forward on a global decision on the issue of openly gay clergy, thus demonstrating the Movement is continuing to make divisive decisions without first clarifying the core principles of Conservative Judaism. There is a great risk that leaders in the Conservative Movement might be tempted to think that they have made their bold move by appointing a non-rabbi as chancellor of JTS, and thus shy away from re-imagining the Movement, be it by synagogue members, the intermediate organization, or the rabbis. Any change in the Movement must embrace all disaffected segments of the Movement through an open architecture that is as expansive as possible.
On December 6, 2006, the Law Committee of the Conservative Movement once again created theological confusion for Conservative Jews. After lengthy deliberation, it approved three contradictory halachic (Jewish legal) opinions that both forbade and approved homosexual behavior. As a result of the decision, four members of the committee immediately resigned. These opinions have also laid an unclear road map for the ordination and acceptance of gay and lesbian clergy and may lead to a fatal schism for the Conservative Movement. This most recent failed attempt at creating a unified halachic framework for the movement demonstrates once again that the movement would be better off adopting boundary principles rather than trying to adopt unified theological or legal rulings on controversial issues. The Conservative Movement has just spent too much time trying to square circles. It is time to try something else.
Ideally, a new post-denominational Conservatism will link all of its tributary streams into one diverse Movement that links all Jews through “time and space. This new form of Conservatism will nurture Jews spiritually through practices that create powerful emotional sources and bolster, as Freud terms it, the “shared Jewish psychic structure” that supports a strong Jewish identity. If that can be accomplished, Conservative Jews can focus on theology later. The new leadership of the revitalized Conservative Movement can demonstrate that there is not just one meaningful and acceptable ideological stance between Reform and Orthodoxy, but an abundance of comfortable places along the spectrum. The new Conservatism would not be an ideology in the sky but an achievable set of practices that will dramatically strengthen American Jewry and challenge Orthodoxy and Reform to continue to grow.
* * *
The Conservative Movement is currently locked in a self-defeating cycle of self-criticism and introspection, which is focused on reconciling irreconcilable theological positions. The Conservative tailspin is further compounded by organizational and management failures. These developments have alienated rank and file members. American Jewry needs the Conservative Movement to reinvent itself as a broad-spectrum association based on practice, not theology. The new Conservatism can be a comfortable home to a host of mini-Movements, each offering a more personal meaning to its members. The focus of the broad new Conservative Movement should be on increasing Jewish practice and involvement in a way that will challenge its members to reach achievable goals. Through these efforts, Conservative Jews will pioneer and illuminate the vastness of the terrain between Reform and Orthodoxy[24].
I have arranged the following footnotes: links with relevant information or brief clarifications of specific ideas Mr. Scott A. Shay writes about in the above excerpt.
fn1. USCJ
fn2. USCJ
fn3. SSDA
fn4. http://www.ujafedny.org/site/c.ggLUI0OzGpF/b.1409301/k.BCC8/Home.htm
fn5. Likely a reference to Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life
fn6. This piece was published before America’s JTS and the American Jewish University had announced their accepting of qualified homosexuals to their rabbinical and cantorial schools. Yet, the “ban” does still apply at the Conservative rabbinical schools in Argentina and Israel (as well as the rabbinical schools in Hungary and UTJ’s ITJ with historical Conservative Jewish connections.)
fn7. http://www.menachemcreditor.org
fn8. http://www.ccarnet.org/
fn9. This is still true for the Conservative Rabbinical schools outside of the United States[6].
fn10. http://www.rabbinicalassembly.org
fn11. http://www.utj.org
fn12. http://www.havurah.org
fn13. http://www.bj.org
fn14. http://www.kehilathadar.org
fn15. I believe that this is in fact a reference to Shaar Hashomayim
fn16. http://www.ikar-la.org
fn17. Now the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ)
fn18. http://yedidya.org.il
fn19. http://www.geocities.com/shira_hadasha/ or http://www.shirahd.org.il
fn20. I believe that this is in fact a reference to Manhattan’s Darkhei Noam
fn21. http://www.anschechesed.org
fn22. http://www.jtsa.edu/chancellor/writings/index.shtml
fn23. http://www.stanford.edu
fn24. For my own brief thoughts in reaction to the entirety of this article, please see my post at http://www.jonahrank.com/article/367/Thoughts-of-mine-in-response-to-How-to-Energize-American-Jewry
The following excerpt, from Chapter X of Getting Our Groove Back: How to Energize American Jewry by Mr. Scott A. Shay and published by Devora Publishing (December 1, 2006), has been reprinted with the permission of Mr. Shay and Devora
(Numbers in brackets refer to my footnotes ["fn"] at the bottom of the entry.)
The Causes for the Conservative Movement’s Decline
Conservative Jews feel that the Movement’s lack of effective leadership and institutional failings have caused the Movement’s decline. As Professor Susan Hodge writes, “It is a half joking, half bitter catchword among some of us that the Conservative Movement has contempt for Conservative Jews. The Movement also has self-perpetuating bureaucracies that are out of touch with us and don’t respect or even welcome us, the ordinary Jews living our lives.” Dr. Jacob Ukeles, a consultant to The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism[1], wrote after his involvement in a three-year effort to design a strategic plan to reorganize The United Synagogue’s twenty-two separate departments and fifteen regional offices that progress has been “glacially slow.” As of 2006, five years have passed since The United Synagogue[1] first identified the need for institutional reform, yet little has changed. The Conservative Movement bureaucracy makes the U.S. Department of Agriculture[2] appear positively dynamic. To put it bluntly, the leadership of Conservative Judaism is floundering in a bureaucratic quagmire.
The Conservative Movement’s recent failure to address the decline of Conservative Jewish education in a constructive way underscores the laity’s criticism of the Movement’s leadership. Because of a lack of vision and a spirit of frustration, some Conservative leaders have begun to gratuitously criticize the Movement’s flagship day schools, the Solomon Schechter[3] system. While correctly bemoaning the Conservative Movement’s failure to devote anywhere near adequate attention or resources to congregational schools, some have gone a step further by calling for an end to the “overemphasis on day schools.” Others have claimed it was a “massive failure to put the emphasis we do on day schools” and that “the damage done has been horrendous.” Rather than simultaneously accentuate the positive aspects of day schools and advocate additional focus on congregational schools, Conservative leaders are pitting one form of education against another needlessly. Tragically, this unnecessary fighting has contributed to the stagnation of Solomon Schechter Day School[3] enrollment and has led many of the Movement’s best and brightest leaders to focus solely on non-denominational community day schools. Moreover, none of this bickering has led the Conservative Movement to devote additional resources to Hebrew schools; rather, all recent additional resource allocations to Conservative Hebrew schools have come primarily from community organizations such as the UJA-Federation of New York[4] and groups of national unaffiliated philanthropists. The Reform Movement has contributed most of the new methods for teaching and organizing Hebrew schools. For many Conservative Jews, the fight over Jewish education is only the most recent example of the Movement’s lack of leadership.
There are also, to be fair, external reasons for the accelerating decline of the Conservative Movement. A fundamental reason for the Conservative Movement’s success from 1945 until the 1970s was that the Movement corresponded to American society’s general desire for “moderation” and “homogenization” and occurred at a time when Americans generally, and Jews specifically, moved to the suburbs. As Marshal Sklare argues, in his book Jews on the Suburban Frontier, the combination of these two phenomena created the perfect environment for Conservative Judaism to flourish. Sklare claims that the Conservative Movement was in a way tailor made for the “Lakeville” or suburban Jew. The 82% of Lakeville Jews who were born Orthodox but wished to flee Orthodoxy were looking for a synagogue environment that was comfortable and not so concerned with theology. These Jews were naturally drawn to Conservative synagogues, because they had a lot of Hebrew in the service, including all the traditional parts of the service (such as Musaf), and a Jewishly observant and devout rabbi. Conservatism’s primary virtue was that it did not fall under either “extreme” of Reform or Orthodox. In recent decades, however, American society has become more comfortable with diverse and more narrowly focused groups. Few people still feel the need to moderate their views to become more comfortable with diverse and more narrowly focused groups. Few people still feel the need to moderate their views to become part of a larger group, and emerging adults no longer need a “compromise synagogue” between their practices and the practices of their parents. Instead, young Conservative Jews today want a Judaism that focuses on their own spiritual needs. The result of this social shift has been the steady decline of Conservative Judaism over the past two decades.
Unfortunately, it seems as though the Conservative Movement leadership has deliberately ignored the societal changes around them. The Conservative Movement leadership can be compared to the character “Hem” in the widely read parable of “Who Moved My Cheese[5].” In this story two “little people,” Hem and Haw, discover that after many years of finding and enjoying cheese from one spot in a large maze, one day the cheese is suddenly no longer there. In fact, the cheese had been slowly diminishing over time; Hem and Haw had simply not noticed. But although Haw leaves his old spot – albeit with much tribulation and some self-doubt – and ultimately succeeds in finding a new spot with more cheese than ever, Hem refuses to leave. Instead, Hem nurtures his confusion and resentment about the possible reasons why there is no more cheese but takes no action. He just keeps blaming others for the movement of the cheese, and yet is still somehow comforted by being able to go to the same place where there used to be cheese even though it no longer offers any food. Although the parable holds out some hope, Hem presumably starves to death. Conservative Jews in the pews and working pulpit rabbis have been witnessing the slow decline in the Conservative Movement’s leadership for years and are understandably central organs. Others have just voted with their feet.
Additional Controversies that threaten the Conservative Movement
The Conservative Movement is currently grappling with two issues that threaten its ability to remain unified. These issues are the ban[6] on gays and lesbians entering rabbinical school and the coexistence of egalitarian and non-egalitarian congregations within the Conservative Movement.
Currently, the Conservative Movement is polarized between those who do and do not support the coexistence of egalitarian and non-egalitarian synagogues. In approximately 90% of North American Conservative synagogues, men and women participate equally in all aspects of prayers and Torah reading. These synagogues refer to themselves as egalitarian. In the other 10%, women’s participation is limited to some degree by traditional halachic constraints that relate to women leading services, being counted in the minyan and participating in the Torah service. Men and women sit together in all Conservative congregations. At the December 2005 biennial conference of the Conservative Movement, Rabbi Menachem Creditor[7] was both enthusiastically supported and bitterly resented for a speech that urged the Movement to expel non-egalitarian Conservative synagogues from the Movement. On the one hand, Creditor’s supporters feel that it is impossible to coexist with non-egalitarian synagogues as a matter of principle; on the other hand, Creditor’s critics, especially Canadian Conservative rabbis, who are the spiritual leaders of most of the non-egalitarian congregations, found it hard to comprehend that the Movement leaders were threatening their congregations with expulsion when they had been part of the Conservative Movement for decades and were practicing what was the normative Conservative Judaism of just a few decades ago. This particular rift not only involves a dividing line within American Conservative Jewry, but also highlights the split of American non-Orthodox Jewry from its international brethren on key issues. For example, Canadian Reform Jews have not recognized the American Reform position on patrilineal descent. Furthermore, Canadian Reform Jews have not been successful in getting the CCAR[8] to reexamine the issue. In the Conservative case, some American Conservatives are lobbying to expel the Canadians if they do not comply with the American view.
The second major issue threatening to split the Conservative Movement is the question of gay and lesbian rabbis. Although it seems clear that a decisive majority of both Conservative laity and rabbis endorse the acceptance of openly gay and lesbian individuals to Conservative rabbinical and cantorial schools as well as collegial assemblies, a change of policy in favor of gays and lesbians nonetheless faces very tough hurdles from a purely halachic perspective. And, while some Conservatives believe that halacha should simply be set aside on moral grounds, others who deeply believe in Conservative halacha contend that there are grounds for a revision of halacha known as a takana, and that this course of action must be pursued before any official pronouncement can be made. In the meantime, the current policy is that gays and lesbians are not admitted to Conservative rabbinical school[9]; however, if a Conservative rabbi post-ordination “comes out,” he/she may continue to be a member of the Rabbinical Assembly[10] and a practicing rabbi. Although the status quo has functioned in practice, the issue nevertheless threatens to split the current Conservative configuration, because advocates of both approaches to gay and lesbian clergy feel passionately that they will not be able to stay within the Movement if the decision goes against their view.
The narrowing of vision of the Conservative Movement has resulted in other departures from the Movement. Many of the offshoots of Conservatism were once some of the most exciting groups within the Movement. Groups such as the Union for Traditional Judaism[11], the Havurah[12] devotees, and the Reconstructionists are offshoots of Conservative Judaism, and new or revitalized synagogues are led by ordained Conservative rabbis who have either left the Movement of rounded new institutions pointedly unaffiliated with the Conservative Movement. Neither B’nai Jeshurun (“BJ[13]”) or Kehillat Hadar[14], both of New York, Shaar Hashamayim[15] of Montreal nor Ikar[16] of Los Angeles, could find a place within the Conservative Movement for their vibrant and rapidly growing congregations. These new offshoots are a boon to American Jewry, but a loss to Conservative Judaism.
Jewish Commitment among Conservative Jews
With all of the controversy and confusion about what it means to be a Conservative Jew, only half of Jews who call themselves Conservative actually belong to a Conservative Synagogue (or any synagogue for that matter). It is, however, critical to note that although the number of Conservative Jews who do affiliate with a synagogue[] continues to decline, their Jewish commitment is highly and arguably rising, if measured by their commitment to Jewish practices. The intermarriage rate among “synagogue” Conservative Jews was 17% from 1980 to 1990, and only 12% a decade later. This rate is far below the overall American Jewish average of 46% for 1991-2001. Thus, though the number of Conservative Jews is declining, their commitment to Judaism is increasing. The fundamental question for Conservative Jews should be: how can more Jews find Conservative Judaism meaningful? In my view, the Conservative Movement should review how the Reform and Orthodox Movements responded to existential challenges with radical solutions that enabled them to rebuild their bases.
Reform and Orthodox Responses to Existential Threats
Over the past century both Reform and Orthodox Jewry have responded to existential threats, resulting either from a decline in leadership or unresolved controversies, by allowing their constituents a margin of freedom. As a result, neither Orthodox nor Reform Jewry today is uniform; rather, both encompass a broad spectrum of practices within boundaries defined by the center. This response was revitalized both groups enormously.
Reform was able to avert demographic collapse by abandoning a fixed theology. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Reform Movement’s membership dwindled to fewer than 10% of American Jewry. (Reform’s crisis then was worse than today’s Conservative crisis.) In response to this drastic decline, the Reform Movement jettisoned its highly ideological and partisan Pittsburgh Platform of 1887 and replaced it with a framework for Reform Judaism instead of a fixed theology. This approach permitted Jews with very different theological stances to coexist within the Reform Movement and even the same synagogues. Moreover, during this period, Reform laity gathered the courage to completely change the way the Movement’s institutions were led. The laity called on leaders to honor different positions within Reform Judaism rather than making religious decisions binding on all Reform Jews. Thus, at the December 2005 Union of American Hebrew (Reform) Congregations[17] convention, the prayer services ranged from yoga-oriented silent prayer groups to a minyan that closely resembled a left-wing Conservative service. By abandoning a fixed theology, Reform has re-made itself into a vibrant, dynamic, and wide open movement that would be unrecognizable to a Reform Jew of the 1920s.
Orthodoxy’s incredible and unexpected revival in the past several decades has taken place for two principal reasons: first, its willingness to include more diversity under the umbrella of orthodoxy and second, a wider focus on day schools. Although some outside observers perceive Orthodox Jewry as monolithic, it is actually diverse and growing in its diversity. In addition to the four variations of the fervently Orthodox […], there are at least three other groups: Centrist Orthodox, Modern Orthodox and a nascent “Egalitarian-light” Orthodox. Each of these groups feels that their members are “commanded” by halacha and a passion for lifelong Jewish learning. At the same time, these groups also exhibit significant variations at the level of basic practice and regarding certain ideological foundations. For example, the Chasidic concept of “the Rebbe” differs greatly from the concept of “Rabbi” or “Rav” in other streams of Orthodoxy. A chasid is essentially born following a certain rebbe because a Chasidic devotee follows the rebbe of his clan. In all other streams, an adult individual presumes the right to select a rabbi whose approach to Judaism is consistent with his personal beliefs. These groups also vary considerably in the role of women within the synagogue service and within the community.
Orthodoxy today incorporates different roles for women. In all streams to the left of the Chareidim, women’s roles in formal prayer services and in learning have grown significantly. Women on the left wing of Orthodoxy have also been pushing for rabbis to revive formerly minority opinions that would enable Orthodox women to participate in the Torah service portion of prayers. Thirty years ago Orthodox women formed the first “women’s davening groups.” In these groups, women prayed separately from men and conducted the entire service, including the Torah portion, themselves. Some halachic adjustments were made to the standard service, but some Orthodox women felt spiritually invigorated by having “a service of their own.” Recently, a few left-wing Orthodox minyanim have adopted the hybrid regular service/women’s davening group for Shabbat morning first introduced by Congregation Yedidyah[18] of Jerusalem. In this service, men and women pray shacharit (the morning prayer) separated by a mechitsa and led by a male cantor. Men and women then go to separate rooms for the Torah service, both sexes come together again for mussaf. In the last few years, the search for halachic innovations to permit more women’s participation has lead to the Shira Chadasha[19]/Darchei Noam[20] style service wherein women actually lead prayers for some portion of the services (at the same time as men present on the other side of the mechitsa) such as Kabbalat Shabbat and Pesukei DeZimra. Women there also participate fully in the Torah service, with the men present on the other side of the mechitsa. Women’s learning has grown tremendously in all streams of Orthodoxy. In many streams, a year of post-high school Jewish learning for women has become as de rigueur as for men. Though a Chareidi man would find it anathema to pray at a Shira Chadasha[19] style minyan, and a woman used to Yedidyah[18] might be unwilling to attend a Chareidi service because she would find it unfulfilling, both of these Jews would consider themselves Orthodox and commanded by halacha. This lack of uniformity is played out in other areas, from dress to educational methods: there is no one Orthodox rabbinical organization that can claim to speak for all Orthodox rabbis. There are several meaningful Orthodox rabbinical associations, in contrast to the Conservative and Reform Movements, which each have only one.
This lack of uniformity has allowed the Orthodox to broadly delineate and differentiate what might at first glance seem like a small range of the Jewish denominational spectrum. All streams of Orthodoxy have embraced day schools […]. But more importantly, the intense drive for Jewishly educating children energized all parts of the movement. With this, Orthodoxy became by far the fastest growing movement in America over the last twenty years.
The Conservative Movement has the potential to undergo a similar radical transformation, if its members are willing to fundamentally reconceptualize their understanding of what it means to be a Conservative Jew and install an entirely new leadership. This transformation will make Conservatism the first post-denominational movement. While this may sound like a contradiction, upon closer examination it is not. Post-denominationalism is not the same as non-denominationalism. Non-denominational Jews are those who do not belong to any movement because they are simply less attached to Judaism. They may be Jews married to non-Jews, children of intermarried Jews or simply disaffected from Judaism. Most non-denominational Jews are on the exit lane from American Jewry. By contrast, post-denominational Jews may be highly interested in being Jewish but feel disaffected from the Movements as they are currently configured. Many of these Jews are lapsed Conservative Jews who have not found a new denominational home in which they are comfortable. Also, unlike non-denominational Jews, post-denominational Jews have core Jewish peoplehood values such as culture, an interest in Israel, a wish to perpetuate the Jewish people and a desire to educate their children Jewishly. At the same time, post-denominational Jews have a wide variety of narrow approaches to the religious part of being Jewish. The “Conservadox” have a somewhat expansive view of traditional halacha, but consider halacha binding. Other post-denominational Jews approach God through more purely spiritual practices. As important as Judaism is to them, these Jews do not view the strict observance of traditional halacha as a way to help them find meaning in their lives.
Reinventing Conservative Judaism
Because there is no way that the Conservative Movement can encompass the entire spectrum of post-denominational mini-Movements in a theologically consistent manner, it should stop trying to bind all of its members to one theology. Instead, it should create boundaries that leave room for a wide range of practices. Recent Conservative leadership feels encroached on by members on the left and the right only because it wants to resolve the differences between them by drawing a straight party line somewhere down the middle. The narrowness of the middle, however is only the result of the Conservative leadership’s own lack of imagination. As the case of vast variations within the Orthodox and Reform Movements demonstrates, the middle can also be wide. Consider the following analogy from the physical world. The length of any coastline such as the Costa del Sol, or the Cliffs of Cornwall, will vary considerably depending on how it is measured. If a surveyor measures the coastline by advancing 1000 yards per measurement, he would get a much different measurement than if he advanced up the coastline 10 yards at a time. In the latter case, more nooks and crannies would each become meaningful parts of the measurement, which would be substantially larger. The measure of the coastline would be larger still if the surveyor advanced one yard a time. For American Jews there are many meaningful crevices and nooks that are defined away by the leadership of the Conservative Movement when they try to measure their boundary as one straight line from top to bottom. Instead, the beauty of a theological landscape only becomes clear when each sub-peninsula (i.e. mini-Movement) on the coast displays its own texture and magnificence. When the Conservative Movement decides not to resolve major theological questions such as the gay/lesbian issue, the key women’s participation issues, the binding nature of halacha and Schechter Day School[3] versus Hebrew school controversy, the middle will become very large indeed.
In lieu of a uniform theology, the Conservative Movement must declare several boundary principles which are in the reach of practicing and non-practicing Conservative Jews as well as post-denominational Jews. I will propose a list of these principles, but such a list is obviously up to a new Conservative leadership to devise.
1. Observance of Shabbat, Jewish Holidays and kashrut in some form;
2. Weekly synagogue attendance;
3. Commitment to making Torah learning a life long endeavor;
4. Commitment to a serious Torah education for children, meaning day school or effective Hebrew school in conjunction with youth groups, camping and Israel programs;
5. Tzedakah, ethical behavior and social action;
6. Commitment to Israel;
7. Traditional determination of Jewish peoplehood (i.e., matrilineal descent or conversion).
This is not a large list and it is not particularly ideological. One can believe or not believe in halacha and embrace each principle; however, all new Conservative Jews should be able to recognize and appreciate the commonality of those who abide by these seven principles. Within the framework of these seven principles, there is a lot of room for variation. Some mini-Movements within the new Conservative umbrella will deem other additional principles to be binding. It may be that some Conservative Jews will not feel comfortable davening in another Conservative synagogue linked with a different mini-Movement; this should not be viewed as an obstacle, as it happens all the time among the Orthodox. Likewise, some Reform Jews don’t understand yoga minyanim while others do not like mostly Hebrew services. Perhaps different mini-Movements will want to establish their own rabbinical seminaries. That too is okay. The more seminaries there are, the more avenues to approaching Jewish learning there will be. Some mini-Movements will feel comfortable with openly gay and lesbian rabbis and some will not. Some on both sides can feel loyal to the common principles of the halacha. We can also hope the rancor over the binding nature of halacha, which is now largely theoretical, will quiet down as Conservative Jews press towards a common practice of the common denominators of Judaism.
The conservative Movement can flourish by creating a high-quality common infrastructure for a highly engaged community of Jews who have different beliefs yet also respect each other. The Conservative Movement must make its Hebrew schools engaging and effective […]. Conservative synagogues must also create a seamless integration of youth groups, summer camps and Israel programs for its youth. Everyone can agree on the imperative of these steps. The Law Committee of the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly[10], which presently issues opinions that are either ignored by the laity or which divide the Movement, should be abolished. In its place, a Fences Committee should be established to define the boundaries of the Conservative Movement. Each mini-Movement would establish its own Law or Practice Committee. These smaller Law Committees would be more responsive to their mini-Movements, which will hopefully lead their constituent members to actually take their rulings seriously.
The Conservative Movement should shift its focus away from theology toward creating comfortable places for Jews to express their Judaism. The overall Fences Committee should not be empowered to opine on the rightness or wrongness of the mini-Movement’s legal rulings; rather, it should only determine if a constituent mini-Movement has violated one of the fundamental principles or add a principle if there is a broad and deep consensus within the overall Movement to do so. Constituted as such, the new Conservative Movement will no longer have the urge to expel groups that do not express majority opinions, as long as they express authentically Jewish ideas and abide by the seven principles. By shifting away from ideology, theology and theoretical debate, Conservative Judaism will create comfortable places for Jews to express their Judaism. In short, all the streams of the new Conservatism can commonly support these comfortable places.
Some Conservative synagogues may offer multiple comfortable places which each have their own approach. A few avant-garde Conservative synagogues such as Ansche Chesed[21] of New York already offer several different minyanim on Shabbat morning and thus already function like a microcosm of what could be the new Conservatism. If different groups can and do happily coexist in the same physical space by focusing on being a community bound by practice as opposed to the purity of ideology, imagine how well they could live together within the same Movement. And, since the focus of the seven principles is to create a realistic common denominator, Conservative Jews who do not and would not want to keep all aspects of halacha can still find their place within the Movement. The goal of these principles is to eliminate the “contempt” that Jews in the pew currently feel from the elite intelligentsia of the Conservative Movement. A focus on practice would also end the present and embarrassingly ineffective push for “compliance,” and replace it with a push for cooperation, education and growth from wherever a Conservative Jew stands. Conservatism must change its attitude from shunning Jews to inviting them into the Movement.
In April 2006, the Conservative Movement took a step towards renewal by appointing a non-rabbinic chancellor to JTS who had no previous official tie to the Conservative Movement. Professor Arnold Eisen[22], previously of Stanford University[23], will assume his new post on July 1, 2007. This appointment carries much promise and some risk. Professor Eisen[22] is an outstanding scholar and passionate and engaging speaker who will bring a new spark to the Movement. However, since Professor Eisen’s appointment, the Law Committee is still moving forward on a global decision on the issue of openly gay clergy, thus demonstrating the Movement is continuing to make divisive decisions without first clarifying the core principles of Conservative Judaism. There is a great risk that leaders in the Conservative Movement might be tempted to think that they have made their bold move by appointing a non-rabbi as chancellor of JTS, and thus shy away from re-imagining the Movement, be it by synagogue members, the intermediate organization, or the rabbis. Any change in the Movement must embrace all disaffected segments of the Movement through an open architecture that is as expansive as possible.
On December 6, 2006, the Law Committee of the Conservative Movement once again created theological confusion for Conservative Jews. After lengthy deliberation, it approved three contradictory halachic (Jewish legal) opinions that both forbade and approved homosexual behavior. As a result of the decision, four members of the committee immediately resigned. These opinions have also laid an unclear road map for the ordination and acceptance of gay and lesbian clergy and may lead to a fatal schism for the Conservative Movement. This most recent failed attempt at creating a unified halachic framework for the movement demonstrates once again that the movement would be better off adopting boundary principles rather than trying to adopt unified theological or legal rulings on controversial issues. The Conservative Movement has just spent too much time trying to square circles. It is time to try something else.
Ideally, a new post-denominational Conservatism will link all of its tributary streams into one diverse Movement that links all Jews through “time and space. This new form of Conservatism will nurture Jews spiritually through practices that create powerful emotional sources and bolster, as Freud terms it, the “shared Jewish psychic structure” that supports a strong Jewish identity. If that can be accomplished, Conservative Jews can focus on theology later. The new leadership of the revitalized Conservative Movement can demonstrate that there is not just one meaningful and acceptable ideological stance between Reform and Orthodoxy, but an abundance of comfortable places along the spectrum. The new Conservatism would not be an ideology in the sky but an achievable set of practices that will dramatically strengthen American Jewry and challenge Orthodoxy and Reform to continue to grow.
* * *
The Conservative Movement is currently locked in a self-defeating cycle of self-criticism and introspection, which is focused on reconciling irreconcilable theological positions. The Conservative tailspin is further compounded by organizational and management failures. These developments have alienated rank and file members. American Jewry needs the Conservative Movement to reinvent itself as a broad-spectrum association based on practice, not theology. The new Conservatism can be a comfortable home to a host of mini-Movements, each offering a more personal meaning to its members. The focus of the broad new Conservative Movement should be on increasing Jewish practice and involvement in a way that will challenge its members to reach achievable goals. Through these efforts, Conservative Jews will pioneer and illuminate the vastness of the terrain between Reform and Orthodoxy[24].
I have arranged the following footnotes: links with relevant information or brief clarifications of specific ideas Mr. Scott A. Shay writes about in the above excerpt.
fn1. USCJ
fn2. USCJ
fn3. SSDA
fn4. http://www.ujafedny.org/site/c.ggLUI0OzGpF/b.1409301/k.BCC8/Home.htm
fn5. Likely a reference to Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life
fn6. This piece was published before America’s JTS and the American Jewish University had announced their accepting of qualified homosexuals to their rabbinical and cantorial schools. Yet, the “ban” does still apply at the Conservative rabbinical schools in Argentina and Israel (as well as the rabbinical schools in Hungary and UTJ’s ITJ with historical Conservative Jewish connections.)
fn7. http://www.menachemcreditor.org
fn8. http://www.ccarnet.org/
fn9. This is still true for the Conservative Rabbinical schools outside of the United States[6].
fn10. http://www.rabbinicalassembly.org
fn11. http://www.utj.org
fn12. http://www.havurah.org
fn13. http://www.bj.org
fn14. http://www.kehilathadar.org
fn15. I believe that this is in fact a reference to Shaar Hashomayim
fn16. http://www.ikar-la.org
fn17. Now the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ)
fn18. http://yedidya.org.il
fn19. http://www.geocities.com/shira_hadasha/ or http://www.shirahd.org.il
fn20. I believe that this is in fact a reference to Manhattan’s Darkhei Noam
fn21. http://www.anschechesed.org
fn22. http://www.jtsa.edu/chancellor/writings/index.shtml
fn23. http://www.stanford.edu
fn24. For my own brief thoughts in reaction to the entirety of this article, please see my post at http://www.jonahrank.com/article/367/Thoughts-of-mine-in-response-to-How-to-Energize-American-Jewry
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
